


I promise, Lily

by Sa_kun



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Baby Fic, Canonical Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-14
Updated: 2010-12-14
Packaged: 2017-11-08 22:39:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/448338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sa_kun/pseuds/Sa_kun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Severus Snape is the first one to arrive in Godric's Hollow the night the Potters were murdered.</p><p>This is what he did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I promise, Lily

**Author's Note:**

> **In response to[Bil's challenge](http://potionsandsnitches.net/fanfiction/modules/challenges/challenges.php?chalid=512).**

The baby is filthy and bloody, screeching loud enough to wake the dead.

Except that they don't. Wake, that is. Lily's eyes remain sightless and her chest doesn't lift up and down. She is much too still. Severus knows only too well, because he hasn't been able to take his eyes away from her.

The baby squalls. Arms and legs kicking, but Severus hardly notices. It's not until the baby starts verbally protesting that Severus start paying notice to the baby he had almost absentmindedly rescued and picked up from under the wrecked crib.

"Nooo!" the baby wails. "Dow', dow'! Wan' dow', now!"

Severus stares into the green eyes of the baby – very much alive and angry and indignant. Eyes that are at once everything like Lily's, and yet nothing at all like hers.

"Dow'! Wan' Mummy! Mummy kiss owie!" Clumsy hands and chubby fingers point at the raw and bleeding scar in the middle of the baby's forehead. "Mummy kiss owie good!"

For a moment the words stick in Severus' throat. "No," he says and watches the baby's face scrunch up with frustration again. Fat tears well up in the already swollen and red eyes. "Lily…Mummy is sleeping. She went to be with the ancestors in the gardens of Avalon." It is as if another entity has taken up residence within Severus and is somehow speaking through him.

"Papa? Papa!" The baby begins twisting around, as if he is expecting his father to appear next to him any moment.

Old resentment wells up inside Severus. But then he sees Lily again, still and cold on the ground, and the feeling vanishes in the face of grief. "Papa, too," he murmurs.

The baby grabs Severus face, grubby hands tangling in his hair. "Owie! Harry owie!" There are silent tears running down the baby's face, down flushed cheeks already smeared with tears and dust and blood. "Sevvie, Sevvie kiss Harry's owie good?"

Severus freezes.

Before this night, he has only met the baby once before. It had been a brief and awkward meeting, short and blunt. He had been unaware that Lily had taken the time to tell her son about him. Certainly, he is not prepared for her son to remember and recognise him by name.

"Sevvie? Sevvie help Harry!" the baby demands, almost sobbing on air. "Help Harry!"

"Yes, yes," Severus hears himself mutter, even as his mind races through the impossibility of a child this small, this age, knowing him, Severus Snape, by name.

In the distance, he can hear the mechanical rumble of an engine. A part of him knows that he will not be alone for long. He knows the Headmaster had put up protections that were as varied as they were powerful. He would have been alerted the instance the wards fell. The resentment that wells up this time remains, because the fact was that _Severus_ had been aware the very instant the wards fell the when the enchanted necklace Lily had given him that one time, after that Order meeting that had been so awkward, had alerted him by breaking in half. She had designed the charm precisely like that so Severus could fulfil his promise to save her son.

Severus had arrived in time to see the Dark Lord vanish in a black mist.

The necklace broke almost thirty minutes ago, of this he is almost certain, and still Dumbledore remains absent.

The rumble grows louder. Far in the distance in the dark sky, Severus sees the headlight of a flying object making its way closer and closer. He has heard tales of the flying motorcycle. Typically Black, he thinks with a sneer. Apparition would have been a much faster mode of transportation. Then again, he has heard whispers and rumours that Black is the one who was Secret Keeper.

It would mark Black as the one who betrayed the Potters. He would hardly be in a hurry if he betrayed the Potters, Severus thinks.

The baby is pounding his small fists on Severus' chest, speaking gibberish.

The decision is made in a split moment and is as much foolishness and irrationality as it is born from a fervent desire to protect Lily's son and keep his own very last promise to her. He takes strands of her fiery hair and winds it around one of the splinters of wood the floor is littered with. He smears some of the baby's blood over it, to make sure the hair stays on the piece of wood but mostly to assure that what he is about to do will succeed.

The transfiguration itself is rather easy, as most Dark Arts tend to be, and Severus knows this particular Dark Transfiguration will remain undetected because of the Dark Lord. In moments a replica of the baby sobbing in his arms lies on the ground in front of him. The copy is lifeless and still, naked and cold. Severus levitates it in under the broken crib.

The baby in his arms he clutches closer and shields with his cloak.

The light and the rumbling of the flying motorcycle has drawn closer.

Severus remains only a moment longer, taking one last look at Lily. Then he turns around and walks away.

Severus manages to take two steps, then the baby begins protesting. "No, no! Kitty, Kitty!"

Bemused, Severus mutters, "Accio baby's Kitty."

It's a stuffed toy, a once white kitten with large purple eyes. "Kitty!" the baby moans through the tears that have once again started up. He hugs it close, burying his face against the soft artificial fur. "Kitty, say bye bye Mummy," Severus hears the baby whisper.

"Goodbye, Lily," Severus whispers in response.

"Bye, Mummy," the baby says, peeking over the cat toy.

They repeat the ritual in the sitting room, where Potter lies on the floor. His glasses are broken and there is a large bloody gash across the man's abdomen. Severus stays only long enough for the baby to say his goodbyes, and to Summon the heavy ring he can only just make out from where he stands. It sits on Potter's right index finger. It's a pureblood heirloom, an artefact that has been passed down through many generations.

The ring has a new owner now, a baby not even old enough to talk properly yet. But Severus knows the customs. His mother made sure of that, before his father turned to the bottle. The baby in his arms will know as well. Severus will teach him everything; will make him strong and great. Severus will protect him, keep him safe.

Maybe, one day, Severus will also learn how to love and care for the baby in the way he has until this day only ever done towards Lily.

He Apparates away, the baby clutched to his chest, the very moment he hears the motorcycle land outside on the gravel road down by the Potters' fence.

Tonight he will scour the attic for the baby furniture he knows his mother stashed away there years ago. He will heal the baby's forehead and clean him up. It's not yet late enough for the Muggle supermarket to have closed, he knows, so he will make a stop there once the baby his clean and whole.

Tomorrow, he will go to Gringotts and sort out the legalities. The goblins are a separate division, free from the Ministry's influence and oppression. In a sense, they are beyond the law that most other wizards and witches have to live under. The goblins will make sure that Lily's baby receives everything that is his due. If he is lucky, they might deign to assist Severus with a shady – brushing the laws of legality as it is a ritual based in Blood Magic – version of adoption that was favoured centuries ago by the Vikings and brought with them to the Isles. That is how the Ministry knows of the ritual, as scholars had been able to trace its origin back to Scandinavia. But Severus knows of it, knows it is undetectable once the magic has had a chance to take root. It is reliable and unbreakable. The baby will be _his_.

Severus is possessive and protective and pedantic.

Severus knows that, once his, nothing will make him hurt or betray the baby.

It is the only way he knows how to keep Lily's promise.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my response to Bil's "Snape finds Harry first" Challenge:
> 
> What if Hagrid wasn't the first person to arrive at the Potters' house on that fatal Halloween? What if Snape got there first? Severus finds Lily and James dead, Voldemort dead... and one small baby boy alone in the wreckage of the house. What does he do?
> 
> * * *
> 
> This story archived at <http://www.potionsandsnitches.net/fanfiction/viewstory.php?sid=2394>  
> 


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